In the past all the wood from coppicing was used - even the small branches and leaves. The area will then be ready for coppicing again after 20 years. The long close growing branches make excellent nests for blackbirds and thrushes. By now the hornbeam coppice shoots have reached up to 20 - 30 feet and out shade all else. It is also superb for small nesting birds such as warblers, dunnocks and wrens. From 5-15 years, coppiced areas become thick impenetrable havens for larger mammals such as muntjac deer, foxes, stoats and weasels which can forage without being chased by dogs. From 3-5 years after coppicing, as the new shoots of the coppiced stools grow, brambles, honeysuckle and bracken take over from the herbaceous plants. These newly opened areas, covered in floral growth, attract many insects, including butterflies, moths and beetles, which in turn are food for birds and bats. Their seeds then survive in the soil when the canopy is closed.

In the first years after felling, herbaceous plants germinate and flower. Rotational coppicing maintains a small-scale structural diversity, with a constantly changing pattern of cut-over areas, scrub thickets and open areas. The most important reason for coppicing nowadays is the benefit it provides for wildlife. We do take some of the coppiced hornbeam to make charcoal to sell in the Woodland Centre at Ruislip Lido (our customers don't have to buy it from less sustainable sources such as tropical rainforests). Nowadays timber production is combined with management for conservation. In the past trees were coppiced for fire wood, charcoal production, bean poles and pea sticks. The reasons for coppicing have changed over the years. Only those areas that have been coppiced in the past are re-coppiced. About 60% of Ruislip Woods is coppiced over a 20 year cycle and the rest is left un-coppiced. Ruislip Woods oak is rumoured to have been used in the Tower of London and Windsor Castle. Standards were left to grow to about 100-200 years old and then harvested for use as timber for buildings. This forms a two-storey woodland, with coppiced hornbeam beneath and other trees growing through them as standards - in our case oaks. There are many different types of coppicing and in Ruislip Woods the method used is ‘coppice with standards’. Some of the larger coppiced hornbeams in Ruislip Woods are over 500 years old. This extends the life of the coppiced trees indefinitely. It involves cutting down hornbeam trees, leaving a stump about one foot high which allows new shoots to grow from the stump. Coppicing is a form of woodland management that has shaped Ruislip Woods for hundreds of years.

The coppice woodland